Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 09:30:36 -0500 From: "Larry W. Chappell" <larchap-AT-microsped.com> Subject: Re: "Cultivation of resistances and subjugated knowledges" --------------BC961E0C1A8ABCDFEC3CB393 > I think > there is at least this point of agreement between Foucault and the > neocons: you can't manage things to be as surprise-free as possible; > managing produces surprises. > I am certainly not surprised that action produces surprises. Please note the qualifying phrase "as possible." I would be very surprised if someone lived a life with nothing but surprises, or made no attempt to mitigate unpleasant surprises. A guy can go to a leather bar, get himself handcuffed or put in a body suit and have the experience be relatively surprise free. Or he could meet Jeffrey Dahmer or the guy in "Pulp Fiction." I doubt I would want to live in a world with either no surprises or nothing but surprises. I doubt I could. > Is it freedom in the sense of being free > from the exercise of Foucauldian power? It can't be that. No human > activity is free from the exercise of Foucauldian power. As Foucault > defines things, power doesn't exist without freedom, nor freedom without > power. So I don't see how one could say that there is more freedom--or > less power--in the uncultivated spaces. There may be more freedom in the > good old-fashioned liberal sense--which is perfectly fine for a lot of > things--but not in Foucault's sense. > I am not sure what Foucault means or can mean by either power or freedom. I am not even sure what I mean by power or freedom -- which is why I want to think about it rather than produce premises in an argument. You seem to either have in mind a grand notion of freedom as pure absence of restraint or the more clearly Foucauldian notion of power as micro-physical resistance to immediate configurations of omnipresent powering. ( The gerund works better than the noun). I agree that the first notion is vacuous -- the total absence of restraint is as unimaginable as Nietzsche and Foucault think it is. I also think there are good reasons to attend to microphysical power for practical and theoretical reasons. I doubt that these notions of power or freedom are exhaustive. With respect to freedom, I read it as a relative term. X is free from restraint by Y. That hardly implies either that X is free from al restraint or that the only kind of freedom is "freedom in the old fashioned liberal sense." The guy in the bondage suit is free vis-a-vis the law if his actions are permitted (as some are not in States like mine with sodomy laws). He is free vis-a-vis the police if he hides out to play his rituals. he may be free vis-a- vis his wife. There are, of course, senses in which he is not free and many could be specified. He is certainly not free of Nietzschean/Foucauldian power because his agency is constituted and restrained by it. He CAN be left alone (forget about cultivation) to exercise what freedom he has. That also means being left alone to restrict freedoms as well. > Foucault is not going to provide you with any justification for thinking > that they are better. I don't know why he should have to. That's not his > project. (It always puzzles me when people say that this sort of thing is > a failure or a deficiency in Foucault's work--seems to me like saying, > "This may be a great cherry pie, but it fails to taste like a good apple > strudel.") > I am not interested in exegetical thinking. I am not terribly concerned with what Foucault "really meant," nor do I owe any fidelity to his project. I am a political scientist trying to figure out ways to use his work. If it pans out -- fine. If not -- cool too. Hmm, yes, Fraser and Habermas. :) Well, if you want a reason to think that the kind of capitalist liberal democracy we presently have is worse than some other kind of political-economic arrangement, I think that Marx will do just fine, in a pinch. I think Foucault thought Marx would do just fine in a pinch, too, as his reactions to Tunisia and even his remarks to Dreyfus and Rabinow about the three different forms of power attest. Not terribly impressed by these folks, and I would rather speak for myself unless I quote or cite somebody. Marx is useful for exploring the restrictions on freedom. The invention of the sociology of knowledge was quite important. Habermas is fine if you are not interested in politics, I guess. Neither help me with the concrete struggle to live freely. Marx's realm of freedom is simply another eschatological fantasy as far as I can see. > To think about what we *might* want to mean by freedom > is fine, I guess ... but it's not something that we ought to *theorize* > about, with the intention of arriving at what we *do* mean by freedom: > freedom, as Foucault says, is in the exercise; when you achieve it, it > vanishes. > This sounds a bit mystical. I am no more interested in grand theories than you are. I do want to think, however, and "freedom" is both an explicatable (Carnap) and useful term for the problems I am interested in. Or, so I would like to think. I may be wrong (Dennis Miller). The test for me is largely pragmatic. We would need to descend from the level of abstraction of this argument to decide if either Foucault or freedom meet the test. --------------BC961E0C1A8ABCDFEC3CB393
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I am certainly not surprised that action produces surprises. Please note the qualifying phrase "as possible." I would be very surprised if someone lived a life with nothing but surprises, or made no attempt to mitigate unpleasant surprises. A guy can go to a leather bar, get himself handcuffed or put in a body suit and have the experience be relatively surprise free. Or he could meet Jeffrey Dahmer or the guy in "Pulp Fiction." I doubt I would want to live in a world with either no surprises or nothing but surprises. I doubt I could.I think there is at least this point of agreement between Foucault and the neocons: you can't manage things to be as surprise-free as possible; managing produces surprises.
I am not sure what Foucault means or can mean by either power or freedom. I am not even sure what I mean by power or freedom -- which is why I want to think about it rather than produce premises in an argument. You seem to either have in mind a grand notion of freedom as pure absence of restraint or the more clearly Foucauldian notion of power as micro-physical resistance to immediate configurations of omnipresent powering. ( The gerund works better than the noun). I agree that the first notion is vacuous -- the total absence of restraint is as unimaginable as Nietzsche and Foucault think it is. I also think there are good reasons to attend to microphysical power for practical and theoretical reasons. I doubt that these notions of power or freedom are exhaustive. With respect to freedom, I read it as a relative term. X is free from restraint by Y. That hardly implies either that X is free from al restraint or that the only kind of freedom is "freedom in the old fashioned liberal sense." The guy in the bondage suit is free vis-a-vis the law if his actions are permitted (as some are not in States like mine with sodomy laws). He is free vis-a-vis the police if he hides out to play his rituals. he may be free vis-a- vis his wife. There are, of course, senses in which he is not free and many could be specified. He is certainly not free of Nietzschean/Foucauldian power because his agency is constituted and restrained by it. He CAN be left alone (forget about cultivation) to exercise what freedom he has. That also means being left alone to restrict freedoms as well.Is it freedom in the sense of being free from the exercise of Foucauldian power? It can't be that. No human activity is free from the exercise of Foucauldian power. As Foucault defines things, power doesn't exist without freedom, nor freedom without power. So I don't see how one could say that there is more freedom--or less power--in the uncultivated spaces. There may be more freedom in the good old-fashioned liberal sense--which is perfectly fine for a lot of things--but not in Foucault's sense.
I am not interested in exegetical thinking. I am not terribly concerned with what Foucault "really meant," nor do I owe any fidelity to his project. I am a political scientist trying to figure out ways to use his work. If it pans out -- fine. If not -- cool too.Foucault is not going to provide you with any justification for thinking that they are better. I don't know why he should have to. That's not his project. (It always puzzles me when people say that this sort of thing is a failure or a deficiency in Foucault's work--seems to me like saying, "This may be a great cherry pie, but it fails to taste like a good apple strudel.")
Hmm, yes, Fraser and Habermas. :) Well, if you want a reason to think
that
the kind of capitalist liberal democracy we presently have is worse
than
some other kind of political-economic arrangement, I think that Marx
will
do just fine, in a pinch. I think Foucault thought Marx would
do just
fine in a pinch, too, as his reactions to Tunisia and even his remarks
to
Dreyfus and Rabinow about the three different forms of power attest.
Not terribly impressed by these folks, and I would rather speak for
myself unless I quote or cite somebody. Marx is useful for exploring the
restrictions on freedom. The invention of the sociology of knowledge was
quite important. Habermas is fine if you are not interested in politics,
I guess. Neither help me with the concrete struggle to live freely. Marx's
realm of freedom is simply another eschatological fantasy as far as I can
see.
This sounds a bit mystical. I am no more interested in grand theories than you are. I do want to think, however, and "freedom" is both an explicatable (Carnap) and useful term for the problems I am interested in. Or, so I would like to think. I may be wrong (Dennis Miller). The test for me is largely pragmatic. We would need to descend from the level of abstraction of this argument to decide if either Foucault or freedom meet the test.To think about what we *might* want to mean by freedom is fine, I guess ... but it's not something that we ought to *theorize* about, with the intention of arriving at what we *do* mean by freedom: freedom, as Foucault says, is in the exercise; when you achieve it, it vanishes.
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